Japanese Supernatural Tales Encounters with Yokai, Ghosts, Demons, and Other Strange Phenomena, from the Kojiki and The Tale of Genji to Dazai and Murakami

A terrifying gathering of more than 100 classic Japanese tales of monsters and demons, yokai and oni and yūrei, that live on in popular contemporary manga, anime, J-horror films, and video games

A Penguin Classic

Flesh-eating oni demons, kappa water sprites, shapeshifting kitsune foxes, vengeful yūrei ghosts—monsters and magical creatures haunt Japanese history and literature. They appear as moralistic figures in eighth-century folktales, comic relief in Edo-era kabuki plays, ghostly encounters in the storytelling game hyaku-monogatari, and sinister predators in contemporary detective novels. This volume brings together an incomparable range—more than one thousand years' worth, from premodern to modern—of the most horrifying and enduring supernatural stories that have exploded in popularity in anime, video games, and horror movies.

Michael Dylan Foster (editor) is the author of The Book of Yōkai: Mysterious Creatures of Japanese Folklore and Pandemonium and Parade: Japanese Monsters and the Culture of Yōkai. A professor in the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of California, Davis, he has been the “Yōkai Navigator” since 2022 for the NHK World documentary television series Yōkai: Exploring Hidden Japanese Folklore.